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We are doing quite a bit of traveling this month and I was needing some “road food”. I really do not like eating out on the road when you can eat healthier and cheaper with a little pre-planning. My friend Jen found a great homemade granola bar recipe on food.com. I tweaked it slightly and doubled it, though I would not recommend doubling it unless you have a bowl the size of your washing machine as it is really hard to mix that much.

First take your dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix well:

4 cups oatmeal

2 cups flour (I used regular unbleached, but I think it would be delicious with whole wheat pastry flour)

1 cup coconut

1/4 sugar (I used packed brown sugar)

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Then add your wet ingredients and mix well with your hands. Trust me, you must use your hands so that you can get the right consistency. If you do not, you will have dry ingredients that do not get wet and your granola bars will crumble and you will cry. USE YOUR HANDS. After it’s mixed add chocolate chips in and mix again.

1 cup chocolate chips (you can also add dried fruit or nuts if that’s what you like in your granola bars)

Then it is time to press them into the pan. They must be firmly and evenly pressed in if you want a good, not crumbly bar. The fact that I could lose an arm wresting match with a three year old did not help me. What I ended up doing worked beautifully. Take a sheet of foil and lay it over your mixture. Then use a rolling pin on the foil to get your bars adequately pressed down. It looked like this:

Bake them at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes. Don’t let them brown too much or they will be hard. They will look slightly puffy and soft when you take them out and cool to a perfectly crunchy/chewy texture. As soon as you take them out of the oven, cut them into bars with a pizza cutter.

Then let them cool in the pan for a while before removing them. Store them in an airtight container. They are perfect to pack in lunches, take on hikes, or take on the road. My husband said they were the first granola bar he has EVER liked! Hope you like them as well!

Our dessert today was recommended by my friend Darci. It is her husband’s favorite and, I must say, we quite enjoyed them as well. They are Brownie Cookie Macaroons. The recipe comes from Duncan Hines. Super easy, gooey and delish. Enjoy!

3. Mix in the oil, water, egg, contents of fudge packet (if using a brownie mix that contains one, it is not essential) and extract with a wooden spoon until all dry ingreidents are moistened (dough will be stiff) (Darci also adds 1 cup of chocolate chips for extra gooey goodness)

I love my fellow Sem wife and friend Jennifer. She is funny, easy to talk to and we have lots of similar interests. I love her the most, though, because she likes to show up on my doorstep with these:

Coconut macaroons. Be still my heart. Gooey, coconutty, chewy, yummy goodness. Since my dinner last night was your basic meat on the grill and veggies, I thought I’d share the perfect “get your ingredients at the food bank” recipe that was our dessert, compliments of Jen. Be sure to check out Jen’s blog for this recipe and more!

If desired turn on broiler to toast the tops. If you use the broiler do not take your eyes off the cookies. I stood with the oven cracked and watched them brown.

Remove from oven.

Melt chocolate chips and drizzle over macaroons. Use a zip lock with the corner cut to make this easier. I was out of bags and impatient so I just put a little circle of chocolate on top of each cookie.